ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES. 69 



On Sept. 24th I saw in New Bond Street ten or twelve 

 lengths of tree-trunk piping, which had been brought to the 

 surface. Most of the pipes were from seven to eight feet long, 

 but two were about twelve feet. The bark was largely worn 

 a\vay, and all were of elm. The longer pipes were evidently 

 portions of tall, straight trees, which had been without side 

 branches of any size, while the shorter pipes were portions of less 

 straight stems of more variable girth, which showed signs of 

 large lateral branches. Consequently the thickness of wood 

 •enveloping the channel varied very much more in the shorter 

 pipes than in the longer ones. A practical difficulty in measur- 

 ing the diameter of a pipe-channel arises from the fact that the 

 tapering end of the pipe is usually much decayed, while the other 

 ■end, which looks little the worse for age, has been enlarged to 

 admit a portion of the tapering end of the next pipe. This, no 

 doubt, accounts for the statement in the Daily Chronicle that the 

 diameter of the channel was about lo inches. For a pipe that 

 had been sawn in two showed a bore of 7 inches. 



As to the antiquity of the street (through not necessarily of 

 the pipes), we learn from Old and New London (Vol. iv., p. 298) : — 



"111 1700," says Pennant, " Bond Street was built no further than the West 

 •end of ChfFord Street. New Bond Street was at that time an open field called 

 the Conduit Mead, from one of the conduits which supplied this part of the town 

 with water." 



In Notes and Qitevies (gth series, vol. iv. 1899), there are some 

 notes on the word " howl" and its derivation. The " howl" in 

 question appears to mean " a wooden waterway under a road," 

 and to be " in constant use by the Trent and the Ancholme," the 

 latter being a stream flowing through north Lincolnshire into the 

 Humber. One correspondent on this subject remarks that the 

 alder was the tree formerly used for wooden pipes ; and that in 

 Lancashire the word used is owlev or howler. Another (" S. Ar- 

 nott, Ealing," p. 132) says : — 



" Howl " (p. 49 and 93). I heard this word, or its equivalent, used in Essex, 

 on the borders of Hainault Forest. I was | accompanied by a friend observant of 

 such matters, and we certainly supposed it began with the letter v, as if it were 

 vole or voule. It was applied, as your correspondents state, to a wooden water- 

 way under a road." 



Though, as we have seen, tree trunk water-pipes were used 

 in Newcastle-on-Tyne, the word hoid appears in Mr. R. O. 



